David Engwicht is a livable streets philosopher and author. Creator of the Walking School Bus, Mental Speed Bumps and many other innovative ways of taming traffic and increasing pedestrian safety, he has taken on "the challenge of a lifetime" to revitalize the downtown district of Wodonga, a small city in Australia often referred to as "Struggle Town" in comparison to its sister city Albury just across the Murray River.

"Urban planner and lecturer at the University of Technology, Earl Bailey, says the chaos being created by vendors on the streets could be lessened if market areas were designed with pedestrian traffic more in mind, rather than motor vehicular.

'The reason why street vending is such a bad thing is because we are planning for motor vehicles rather than planning for people and their activities,' he argues."

Progressive Urban Management Associates (P.U.M.A.), along with several Denver-based collaborators, determines the top 10 global trends changing downtowns across the U.S. 

"The first decade of the new millennium is ushering in an era of unprecedented economic, social and political change. Changing demographics, lifestyles and global competition portend to have profound affects on our daily lives. How global changes will translate into challenges and opportunities in our downtown districts is difficult to foresee, particularly when we are preoccupied by managing local issues, politics and personalities."

"Public space is central to the political and social life of a city. Streets and squares are marketplaces for trade, places for discussion and demonstrations, for formal and informal meetings. Public spaces are democratic in essence: in them citizens have rights, defined only by national laws. They are places in which cities define their character, display their generosity, and show off. Erosion of public space undermines the very fabric of society."

"For four decades, activists for greener, safer NYC streets have scrounged at the margins of this automobilized streetscape. A few feet of traffic lanes converted to bike lanes, the occasional sidewalk extended to relieve a dangerous intersection — all important changes, but all within the context of streets that serve cars, first and foremost. But what would our streets look like if they were redesigned, building-to-building, to first accommodate walkers, bicyclists, the disabled and surface transit? The days of living at the margins are over: the Complete Streets revolution has begun.

The Complete Streets movement represents a newer, bolder approach to making streets safe, accessible and multi-modal. Advocates have shifted their tactics: Instead of improving streets one block or intersection at time, they are working towards new design standards that can be implemented on a grand scale as streets come up for reconstruction or resurfacing. In much the same way that the motor-vehicle lobby irrevocably altered streetscapes in the early 20th century, Complete Streets advocates are creating the blueprints for 21st century streets."

Orange County's oldest and arguably most urban cities – Anaheim and Santa Ana – outpace every other town in the O.C. when it comes to being a good place to take a walk, according to a new study published in Prevention magazine.

Anaheim and Santa Ana made it among the Top 10 walkable cities in California, based on an evaluation of more than 500 U.S. cities undertaken by Prevention and the American Podiatric Medical Association.

All around the country residents of communities large and small are complaining about haphazard development, ugly sprawl and the loss of a “sense of community” that makes the place they live special.

Passengers commuting to and from the North Shore aboard the SeaBus last Friday found themselves surrounded by a horde of pirates who congregated for an ocean-faring party in the middle of Burrard Inlet.

Over 300 people dressed as a variety of pirates stormed the Waterfront terminal in front of chuckling commuters and TransLink employees. The flash mob was organized almost entirely through the social networking site Facebook, which become essential for spontaneous guerilla pillow fights, art installations, and theme parties across the city.

Participants in the event, dubbed Pirates of the SeaBus, gathered at Waterfront Station and boarded two consecutive SeaBuses departing for Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. Upon arrival, they spilled out onto the docks and began dancing to old seafaring songs. Two live bands, the Creaking Planks and Toot a Lute, played both on the ferries and at the terminals, provoking chants of, "Ah-yo hoho, yo hoho!” in spontaneous singings of sailing songs. The night ended with a surprise performance by Empire Alley, complete with mix board and speakers, in front of Waterfront Station.

At a time when communities across America have seen their downtowns diminished or destroyed by the rise of malls and superstores, traditional downtowns in the Hudson Valley still exist in unusual numbers. If their businesses don't exactly thrive, for now at least they're making it.

The reasons are debatable.

It could be that the growing movement to shop locally is making an impression, or that greater distances between mega shopping hubs send people to downtowns more often.

Or it could be something more intangible, a yearning to preserve the sense of community downtowns provide.

As more and more big-box stores arrive and business costs rise, though, can the region's old-timey downtowns survive?

A new center devoted to the development of parks is currently being established under the supervision of the Jeddah Municipality at the Azizyah district, according to a municipality official.

The first of its kind in the Kingdom, the Parks and Community Center aims to serve society in the field of urban parks development through organizing studies, conducting research and providing lectures to public and specialized professionals, according to Ashraf Al-Turki, head of the municipalityï¾’s open areas department.

The 400-square-meter center is being built at the Al-Abrar public park at the intersection of Prince Majed and Sari streets.

There's something special about having an authentic, real center of your community: a Main Street, a plaza or piazza, a town square or village four corners. I mean a real community center, a place like Broadway in Saratoga Springs, Fountain Square in Cincinnati, Boulder's Pearl Street Mall or Santa Fe's downtown plaza. All of these places are special and are regarded by their residents as their social, heritage and emotional community centers. These are places where their community celebrations must happen. Residents celebrate and pay tribute to others in them. People come to such places to mourn, protest and bare their emotions. When these communities show themselves off to the world, their downtowns are the places they feature and the postcards they create. 

You know that scene in the movie I Am Legend where Will Smith (playing the last man on Earth) and his German shepherd (playing the world’s last good dog) go deer hunting in a depopulated Times Square? Well, to my urbanist-geek way of thinking, the most impressive aspect of this masterpiece of computer-generated cityscape is that the new TKTS booth, currently under construction, plays a pivotal role in the action. How is it that before the whole human race perished from a nasty viral infection (or was transformed into obnoxious zombies) we still had the presence of mind to complete a lovely public amenity, the long-neglected winner of a 1999 design competition?